Take A Breather

We are in part three of a series called Fresh Air, and this series is based on a book by Chris Hodges, Pastor Chris Hodges, a book I come back to. It's been released, I guess, five or six years now. I read it when it first came out, and I tend to go back to this book just to re-energize and refresh, especially with ministry and the task of ministry and managing family and stuff like that, because there's times where we feel that we're down and into doldrums, right? Sometimes you feel stuck.

Sometimes you feel dry. You're going through, you're going to church, you're paying your tithes, you're doing through the motions, but you're just, you're just going through the motions, right? And we can feel very dry and stagnant. And the idea of this series is to help us break out of that mode, to always come back to the truth and scripture of what God tells us about living. And it comes from this, this particular verse of scripture, Deuteronomy 30, 19.

It says, this is our theme verse. We've been sharing this every time we open up. This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death. So he gives us an option, right? And he says, blessings and curses.

You can either have blessings or you can have curses. It's pretty, you know, black and white there, right? And what does he say? Now, choose life. Choose life.

So he gives us a choice, an attempt in this series is to help you make the right choice. Because everything in us wants to make the wrong choice. Because we think we've got it figured out and this is the best avenue and this is the best direction. When God clearly lays out things in front of us. And so we've been scooting through this and we're offering four life-giving principles from fresh air.

Air-breathing principles, if we want to call it that, that kind of restore our soul. And in the first week, we talked about the choice. And you really, it starts out with a relationship with Jesus. Not just knowing about Jesus, but actually falling in love with Jesus. That's principle number one.

And principle number two, we talked about last week. We talked about attitudes. That sometimes just changing our attitude a little bit by tweaking our attitude or thinking differently can change the entire environment, everything around us. And we went, we went that route with it and we learned that, man, I can, I can affect people around me and it ultimately affects myself. Well, today I want to talk about something that I think probably affects at least 90% of the people in here, if not all the people in here.

And that's busyness. You're busy. We're busy. We're really busy. And I come back to this quite often.

This is not something I haven't preached on before. I think once a year, maybe even twice a year, sometimes I come back to the busy lifestyle, taking a breath. And we're talking about, the name of this message is Take a Breather. And I want to help you understand that we do need to take breathers from time to time. Because we live in a hurried pace of life.

Everything's going on. We got to be here. We got to be there. And it's killing us. It's tearing us to pieces.

We're not able to effectively live a life-giving pursuit of God because we're so busy with everything that's going on. And tell me if this sounds like you, you start your day by waking up in the morning and your alarm clock went off about three or four times, right? And why did that happen? Because the night before you stayed up too late because you were so busy, right? There was a lot of things to get done.

So you're racing to get up and you get the kids out of bed. And I'm kind of speaking for myself here. One is in preschool and one's in kindergarten. And you're racing to get them ready. And you're putting the clothes on.

They want to put the clothes on themselves. And then you have to kind of fight with them a little bit, you know, like because they're wanting to put it on backwards or they want something mixed match. And like their shoes are different. And you're just like, you know, you're going through that. So you're racing out the door to get them to the bus and get them and then run.

And then you work and you go off to work. And then it's time to get off work. And then you're running home and you get stuck in a traffic jam, right? 30 minutes puts you behind. And the last, you don't have time for dinner.

So you stop by and get some fast food, right? I mean, we live on fast food these days. Cold pizza, maybe out of the freezer. I don't know. But that's all you have time for because you have to get your kids to fall ball, spring ball, summer ball, because they're going to be, you know, Olympians someday, you know.

So we want to make sure we want to get them in all the balls we possibly can. And that actually takes all the rest of our life, all of our time out of our life. And then we get home just in time to help them finish their homework, which it's usually algebra, which nobody knows how to do. I don't think that anybody really knows what that means. You know, if you took algebra, it was probably 20, 30 years ago.

And you're trying to recap on what all that is. And just in time, and then you finish up just in time to get to bed. And the only intimacy is your wife poking you. Stop snoring. And that's our, that's our day, right?

That's our day. Can you relate? And I know many of you got many different things going on. But the average America is, is, is very, very busy. You know you're too busy when you can't finish your book that you're reading on being too busy, right?

You know you're too busy when you tell your kids it's time to eat and you're jumping in the car to go to a restaurant or fast food, right? I mean, I mean, you're too busy when you got more clothes in your car than you do your closet, right? We're, we're, we're busy, busy. I'm not, you know, I'm not necessarily Jerry Seinfeld, but you know. But we're very busy people.

And if you're the average America, I wrote, I wrote this down. I grabbed this from. From some material I was reading it says if you if you're the average American you eat out 14,411 times in your lifetime yeah and that's that's an average okay 18 and this was this was three or four years ago so it might have updated since then and that includes 18 1811 trips to McDonald's okay there's a lot of McDonald's being eaten these days we spend 13 years and four months watching TV that's a lot of time used TV watching we spend five years waiting in lines five years of our life just sitting in a line that's going and a lot of that probably comes from Busch Gardens you know we spend one year of our life looking for misplaced things misplaced things we spend one year of our life and that's my that's low for me you know I'm probably you know three to four year range because my keys I'm and and I read this book or listed actually as a podcast based on this guy that wrote a book about how to manage your time and he said you know you should find a area you put like things like and everything has a home and and and we're trying you know Miranda and I trying to work on that you know but it doesn't work because she always says did you put it in your home and it's home no I didn't put it in his home once you just go to your home you know for those of you in from the 90s y'all understand a little bit of what that means but um what is he talking about some of the teenagers in here what in the world you're home but those are just a few things and I you know I didn't even place social media in there and I'm sure that's that's years and years of our life and our phones and I mean we can't even talk to each other because we're on our phones all the time right and we're just we just live a busy busy busy life and we like to wear it like a badge don't we when we talk to somebody you know how you doing bro it's just good man I'm busy look I got the badge for it I'm busy busy just busy oh congratulations you're busy and that's what kind of how we look at it you know I'm busy busy busy we're busy all the time and if you're burning the candle at both ends you're probably not as bright of a candle as you think you are because you're you're dying you're dying and we need to learn what it really means to rest and and and and and escape the busy life to be more effective the writing is on the wall the writing is on the wall you've probably heard that saying many times but do you know that's actually from the bible yeah you should read your bible it's pretty cool you know we actually get stuff from it and and there's these like interesting stories in there we can we can uh we can learn from and uh um there's this book in there's this book in the bible Daniel if you're if you're new to church he was a prophet and uh and this was during the time of exile of Israel Israel was in exile and then got out in and out they they screwed up and God made them you know brought in enemies to take them in exile and then they said God save us we love you again you know kind of thing kind of like we do often you know save us you know save us God and they were uh and they were uh they were in exile for uh for 70 years um and there was this king named Belshazzar or Belshazzar however you want to speak the American way is to say Belshazzar okay so that you can get away with that and there's this story of him in a room and this is like we're coming up on Halloween so this is cool so I mean you really should read your bible because there's like ghost stories in here guys I mean it's like it's like it's like cool and there's this like spirit hand that comes into the room and and Belshazzar is hanging out with his people and just debauchery you know drinking craziness they're just having a good time we roam the world we got the world by its tail blah you know we're just in you know just wasting time wasting stuff and and and and and this hand comes in and starts writing something on the wall and and he it's it's the freakiest thing in fact the bible of even tells us that that the king's knees were shaking together you know that's like and and and he got weak in the knees and he was he was frightened by what was going on and it began to write on the wall write on the wall a statement a statement and he had no clue what it really meant it was a language he didn't know and he brought in all of his people you know all of his astrologers all of his people of wisdom you know all of the people who would know what to do with this and none of them could figure it out but his wife kind of reminds him hey there's this guy named Daniel that your dad Nebuchadnezzar knew and he used him for a lot of things maybe you should consider bringing him in because this guy's like close to God or something and and he actually has something to share with us he may he may have he may know exactly what's going on here so they bring in Daniel to to interpret what was written on the wall and here's what Daniel says in Daniel 5 if you have your Bibles or you can look to the screen or you can look at your notes we have there's no excuse not to be able to read along with me today unless the lights are too low but uh we we had I asked my tech team to cut up the lights a little bit because I know some of you are using iPhones from week to week you know to kind of look at your notes but um but he says this this is what these words mean this is what Daniel says and and and and king I don't I'm just going to interpret this and the king offered him gold and robe he said I don't want any of that I'm just going to tell you exactly what God and I'm going to tell you about God this this God that that that your your your father feared that you need to fear too and here's why he says God has numbered the days of your reign and brought an end and brought it to an end and then this is the part I really want us to get down to you have been weighed on a scale and found wanting you have been weighed on a scale and found wanting what does he mean by that he said he's like your life isn't adding up it's it's it's not scaled out it's not weighed out you're wasting your life on things that don't really matter in fact things that that aren't good and the things that you could be doing could be so much more effective in your life and in your kingdom but but you've invested your time in the wrong things and you've become useless and you've become wanting meaning you you you're empty king and and you've you've followed it your own way for so long you've done it your own way for so long and here you are finding yourself out of balance and wanting Let me ask you this, do you find yourself out of balance and wanting? Maybe ask your spouse, maybe ask your kids. Do they find your life out of balance and wanting?

I'm encouraging you to let God speak to you and allow Him in this message to help you bring balance to your life because busyness, busyness, busyness, busyness is not the key to satisfaction and hope. So track with me as we begin to look at this because the Bible is very clear on how hurry and busyness and a frantic pace affects our life. It talks about it a whole lot. So when we feel like we're tired and we were putting a lot of time a lot of things and we were going we're coming in on Monday you know to work more tired than we were when we left Friday. There might be a reason for that you know because our lives are just so out of balance and and scattered and and here's some things that happen when we start becoming unbalanced.

This is the writing on the wall. This is where you want to look. This is what you want to look to. When when when you're when you're imbalanced, when you're when you're totally off track, we begin to make bad choices. That's your first point there.

We begin to make and fill that in bad choices. We make bad choices. We can't discern what's right and wrong. When when when craziness has happened and and and I would even go as far to say that we actually make sinful choices. We make sinful choices.

We don't make the right decisions. We can't think about we can't process them properly because we're thinking about all the things that we have to do and everything that's going on around us and we don't make very good decisions. And this is when the devil is best at work when we're in this place. When when we're in the busyness and the and the frustration and all that. He doesn't he doesn't come to you after you get out of church on Sunday morning.

Woo I'm good. I'm on top of the world. Everything's good. It's the Mondays and the Tuesdays and the times where we enter back into life and we enter back into our work and we enter back into our situation where we're where the the the frenziness and everything comes back into play and then and then what happens Satan's traps us and he starts to to to affect our thinking and our minds and and and we're not able to make the right choices because we're saturated with all the things that are going on. I mean saturated.

I love that word saturate as identifying to our lives because what happens I remember when I was one of my first jobs our college was I was I worked for a termite company and I sold accounts for a termite company right and I don't I mean some of you may may have that job in here but it's not it wasn't a fun job for me because you had to crawl under a lot of houses and some of those houses were this high you know and you never knew her snake a snake would come around the corner man and I do like snakes I can handle spider some people are spider people and some people are snake people I mean you're like scared to death of spiders don't have a problem with snakes well mine's snakes I just don't like snakes I just can't handle them I'm not a man I know I know some some of you I've lost some some man cards with by by telling you that but I scream like a woman when I see a snake I just it's just it just scares a death it just it scares me to death I do not like snakes but that was just a side note but um when but we had to go under and inspect these houses and we wanted to we had these dials that we would hit the wood underneath to kind of look at the saturation level of the wood under the house because when something is saturated it begins to break down when it's saturated the foundation begins to break down so if a house is built with wood and saturated then your house is going to crumble so if you have a lot of moisture under your house and it starts to saturate that's why we had to go in and put these barriers down and to dry the place out so that that it would desaturate and that it would it would it would be at a good uh humidity level so that the the house could stand and a lot of times our lives are like that our lives are saturated and they're breaking down and then when the breaking down happens then we can't we we can't function properly we don't have a good foundation so our choices and the decisions we make they're they're they're they're they're muddled and they're they just don't make a lot of sense and sometimes we we do things that we otherwise wouldn't do we get frustrated with people we we get aggravated with people right we we don't react the right way and Luke speaks to to this Luke 21 34 he says be careful or your hearts will be weighed down with dispensation a slow descent into a dark place is what that that really means just just we slowly it's not like a big drop off it's a slow descent and and and drunkenness and and I would say you know they're talking about physical drunkenness here obviously in in scripture in the context but I would also say when our lives get saturated it gets busy we get we're not able to make right decision because spiritually we're drunk and mentally we're drunk because of all the things in life and we're not able to to make clear-cut decisions and the anxieties of life this is why some of you feel tired on Monday when you go into work more tired than you do on Friday it's because of the anxieties of life and and the day will close uh will and the and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap so it's a slow piecing dissension into into Satan's trap and he wants to he wants to catch you during those periods and then those times where you're just going through a lot you're you're you're you're not focused because you're busy doing things and then the second thing that happens is we can't control our emotions hmm when we're busy we really can't control our emotions think about it when you're driving to work and you're late for work and you're stuck in traffic what are you doing you're yelling at everybody you know you're you're you know throwing your hands up doing things that that you otherwise wouldn't do because you're frustrated because you're trying to get the work and you're in my way because this is my highway right and and uh you're you're taking your time and you're getting you're cutting me off because I need to get you know and and we don't act we we act hateful we act we let our emotions go crazy and uh but but but when we're on time or perhaps we Leave, you know, 30 minutes early to go to work, right? Or, or, or whatever. Seems like we're a lot nicer. You know, hey, how you doing? The guy's flipping us off, and we're like, hey, you know, we're just driving down, you know, and after you, you know, we open the door for people.

I got plenty of time, you know, we're just like really polite, and, and, and, you know, it, it affects our emotions when we are busy, when we're in a hurry, when we're scattered, it can affect our emotions. Job 9, 25 says this, he says, my days go by faster than a runner. They fly away without my seeing any joy. So, my question is, when's the last time you've seen joy? When you're, has your, have you been stressed?

Have you been emotional? Have you been depressed because of all the things, all the busyness of your schedule, all those things running through you? Sometimes we're running so fast that we fail to stop. We're running, running, running, running, running, running, running, and we, we fail to stop and actually enjoy life. And I'm preaching to the choir here that oftentimes I have to step back and learn to enjoy the journey.

The, the third thing is we, we are less productive. We're just less productive, guys. When we have a lot going on, we, we, we, we, we, and, and we want to just get that one last task thing, that one email done, that one further thing that we can put out before I go. It doesn't really help. In fact, in the long run, we don't get as much done and because we don't stop.

We don't stop. There's a principle called sharpening the saw. Yeah, I've heard of that. I've got to sharpen my saw a little bit to get things done or get to the next level or whatever it is. And sometimes that, that simply means we need to stop.

We need to stop. We need to pause. We need to break. We need the rest in order to read the function. And, and, uh, it is critical.

It's, it's very critical for our health, for our family. Uh, it, it's, it's critical in so many ways that we, we just stop sometimes. And not a, because the productivity level of our life goes down when we're busy. We're really not getting as much done. Proverbs 21.

5 says this in the message, It's careful planning puts you ahead in a long, in the long run. But hurry and scurry puts you further behind. So you actually get further behind when you're hurrying and doing all that you have to do all in one go, right? Scattered and all over the place. Proverbs 19.

2 says this, a person in a hurry makes mistakes. So we actually, it goes back to that principle. We make bad choices and make bad decisions. We make mistakes. We need to stop sometimes so that our productivity is good.

And the third thing is, and really want to hit on this, is, is, uh, we get to that place where we burn out. We burn out. Or let me say it like this. We are empty. We are empty.

We are dry. We are empty. We, even the things that we find enjoyment in life don't really do anything for us because we're just empty. We don't have. And here's, here's, here's a common misconception.

People think by doing, uh, uh, by doing more, that if I can just do more and I can grab more and I can complete more tasks, that I can, if I can, if I can obtain more work and, uh, you know, do, just do a lot more, then I'll be satisfied. And then people, people just start, start going through the motions to try to satisfy themselves because let me do more. Let me do more. Let me just add this to my portfolio and then I will be complete and they find themselves empty, dry, and burned out. Psalm 39, 6 says, we are merely moving shadows and all our busy rushing ends and nothing.

Ends and nothing. That's what it feels like inside when we are at a place of burnout and dry and empty, spiritually, spiritually, spiritually empty. And we can't go anywhere. We're just burnt out and we're done. And many people believe this, and this is really important.

I want you to understand this and I want you to hear this well. A lot of people believe that burnout is about how much activity we do. I'm burnt out because we have, I have all this stuff. Let me let you, let you know that human beings can actually accomplish a whole lot of things. You probably could do a lot more than you think you can do.

That, that, but that's false because some of the activities that we actually do will restore us. Did you know that? Some of the things that we participate in will restore us. First, so the definition of burnout has nothing to do with time spent, okay? It's not about how, how much stuff that, that's taking your time to keep, get you the burnout.

It's about what you're doing. It's about the things that you're, you're, you're filling your life and you're filling your time and you're filling your calendar with things that don't really matter much. But when we're doing things that actually matter, we actually make a difference when we, when we participate in things that, it gives us life in ourselves. It fills us in. Here's, here's the thing about Salt Church.

The, the reason we have a team, a dream team and we, and we, and we offer, there's obviously always a need in church. I mean, I don't want to like dismiss the need for volunteers and the need for being, you know, a team doing what we do, amen? I mean, well, you wouldn't have this, you wouldn't have the seat you sat on if it wasn't for that. There's always, there's always a need. But it's, it's not ultimately about the need for the church.

It's about them. It's about somebody coming in and finding a place on a team that actually makes a difference. That, that, that, that, that, that we're coming together to make something happen. The, the, the, the building something that makes a difference and it brings life back in ourselves when we're actually doing things that matter. Because our days and our weeks are filled with just kind of useless stuff.

I mean, we're watching TV, you know, 13 years out of our life. I mean, what does that accomplish? And, and, and, and, you know, it, it, it really does. So, so burnout really isn't about the things we do. It's about filling and muddying our lives with the things that don't really matter.

And God has a breath of fresh air for you that he has shared with you. He says, here, come and partake the tree of life. The tree of life is before you. Take and breathe it in. I had a pastor share a story about, actually, it was Chris Hodges in his book.

He shares a story about, about a man in his church. And if you know anything about their church, they have one of the largest, fastest growing churches in America. They run about 39,000 on Sunday mornings with, I don't know, 20, 30 campuses around United States. It's, it's, it's, it's incredible. It's just God's finger has been on this.

And he had a man come in to his church one day, and he was a prominent man in this community, and he said, I think I'll go over there and apologize to him, because he's coming in serving at an event on a weekend, and this guy's really busy, you know, he's got a lot of stuff going on, so he goes over, he says, hey sir, you know, Mr. So-and-so, I'm so glad you're helping out, but you know, I know you got a lot going on, you don't have to be here and do that, and he says, stop. Stop right there, Pastor. Stop right there, because all those things I do during the week, they don't really matter, but this is the one thing that I get to do with a team that's making a difference, and it brings breath into me, into an otherwise busy, crazy week that it can look to the world that we have, you know, we have it all, you know, we're accomplishing big things, but really what it comes down to is doing what matters. Prioritizing what matters.

Prioritizing what matters. That's what brings breath back into us. So many people are doing things they thought were constructive, but, you know, they're empty on the inside, because they're not really fulfilling, and fulfilled, and doing what really matters. And then the last one we don't want to ever get here is we can't hear God. And this is the most critical one that I want to talk about, because you need to hear God.

And if you can't hear God, you don't know where you're going, and if you don't know where you're going, you're completely lost, and you're dry, and you'll hit rock bottom. And we can't hear Him because we don't know how to be still. And, you know, the definition of noise is not my voice or just volume of something. Noise is anything that interferes with communication, whether it be silent communication or anything. And when God's trying to speak to us, and we have all the noise and the busyness, busyness in our lives, it cuts out God trying to speak to us.

So God is actually trying to talk to you, and you wonder, God's not speaking to me. God's not speaking to me. Well, I better go here. I better go there. I better go to this.

You know, maybe I can make God speak to me, you know. And we go through all of these things, when God has been trying to speak to us all along, and when He simply says in Psalm 46, 10, be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. And when is the last time you did that? You stopped, and you got quiet.

You went to your prayer closet or whatever it is and just listened. Listened. Just stopped. Stopped all the stuff and just listened to God. Listen to God speak, because He wants to speak to you.

So what's the solution? I want you to take a breather. And I want to offer you three things. There's a lot of things that we could talk about today and how to make this happen. But I want to offer you some solutions, some solutions today.

Stress. Did you realize stress? I know this is cheesy, but I've got to say it. If you spelled stressed backwards, it spells desserts. Right?

And I want desserts. I don't want stress. I want desserts. Right? So, let's look at Mark 6, 31.

It says, Because so many people were coming and going, they did not even have a chance to eat. And He said to them, Come with me by yourself to a quiet place and get some rest. Jesus took rest. God the Father prepared a way for us to have rest. We all need rest.

So, number one, stop the constant push for more. Stop. You're striving for more. The reason we're busy is because we want more. We want more.

We want more stuff. And the average America spends 137% of their income. Because we want more. And we're striving for more. And we're pushing for more.

And when we're spending 37% over what we actually take in, we've got to do more. And we've got to strive for more. And we've got to pull for more. And we do just about whatever we need to do to gain more. So that we can impress somebody that doesn't really care about us anyway.

Right? We want more. We want to do more. We want people to look at it. Look what I have.

Look at the bigger house. The bigger car. The better job. All those things. We're striving for more and more and more and more.

And we get into the syndrome that we like to call the desire to acquire. And this is a vicious cycle that goes on. You know, we've got more. We've got to get more. We've got more.

We've got to get more. And we've got to get more. And I like the idea of simplifying things a little bit. Because it's so crazy as it already is. And it's almost like an addiction.

We have an addiction for I've got to get the next big thing. And, you know, the iPhone comes out. The iPhone 8 comes out. And then 8S will be out after that. And then a 9.

And then we just kind of spin. And then the phone companies are actually making more off of you. Because they come up with these cool plans where you can swap them out. Because they're like, you know, the desire to acquire. You know, we can make money off of this.

And they're actually causing you to spend more money. And we overextend ourselves financially in every way. And Ecclesiastes 4.6 says this. It is better to have only a little with a peace of mind than be busy all the time.

It's actually better to not have as much and actually be sane. Right? We've got to remember that the greatest thing in life is not things. We don't gain air by having more things. You can have the largest house in the neighborhood.

But you can still be empty. And tired. And burn out. It's not about those things. And as a pastor, you know, you talk to a lot of people that are dying.

Or, you know, at the edge of death and even planting the church, we had an unusual amount of young people pass away. And it's always hard. But you never hear anybody say at the end of their life, man, if I only had, you know, just worked one more day. Or I got one more email accomplished. Or I got, you know, like I got this unnecessary thing done.

If I just got that one more thing done, you never hear that when people are passing. It's usually, I wish I had done more to make a difference. So I'm calling you out today. I'm like, this is the time, this is the day to make the decision to make a difference. You can.

Make a difference today. You can make a difference today. So slow down, slow down. You know, when we get caught in the business of life, we need to ask ourselves, you know, and be frank, oh, well, you know, will having more make me happier? Will doing more make me happier?

Will having more activities make me happier? And I think all of us know the answer is no. It will not. It will not. The answer is no.

It just leaves us discontent even more. Proverbs 14 30 says, a heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones. We, we, envy will rot us when we're looking at the next person and keeping up with the Joneses. Joneses, you cannot be relaxed and be envious at the same time. Proverbs 20 25, I know there's a lot of scriptures here today.

I'm scripturing you up today. Amen. You need it. Write it down. You can take these things home and study them further.

It is a trap for a man to dedicate himself rashly and only later to consider his vows. So, it's a trap. It's Satan's trap to dedicate yourself so. Is life easier when we, when we do this is when we're in debt and when we're in our relationships? We don't have time for relationships and, and is it always, is it easier?

Is it easier? No. No. And the second thing I want to hit is, and write this down, honor the Sabbath day. Honor the Sabbath day.

Do you know this is the any commandment that's broken the most out of any commandment in scripture? And we, we treat it like it's not really that big of a deal, but it actually was written straight from God. Honor the Sabbath day. When God put the Ten Commandments down, he wrote that down. He said, you need, you need a Sabbath.

Exodus 29 and 10 says, you have six days in which to do your work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to me. That's what he said, that, that you need to do this, is a, dedicate that day to me. But not only that, it's for you. I mean, we, it's right there with committing adultery. My seat's going to fall down here, and y'all are all going to laugh, and then it's going to be all over YouTube, and, and, uh, and the pastor of Salt Church, and then our church will blow up because everybody wants to see the pastor that falls down.

So, let's go ahead and take some, take some YouTubes, right? Um, now, I want you to understand this. The Sabbath doesn't necessarily mean Sunday. Actually, it was Saturday, right? Um, in the Old Testament.

It's a principle that we need to take with us, that we need to set a day, and if you have a weird work schedule, you work on Sundays and when, when, you know, Sunday through Wednesday or whatever, then set aside Thursday. Pastors, in case you don't know, pastors have a really busy day on Sunday. This is a work day for us, a very heavy, busy work day. So, we, we, uh, we take different days a week. My, my day's usually Friday.

Um, Friday and Saturday, I try to, try to peel away from everything, you know, front load the beginning of the week, and some, some pastors take, um, uh, Mondays off, you know, and, and what do we do on those days? We do nothing. We relax, and I would even challenge you to do this, and I'm challenging myself at this. You need to really take two days. You need to take a day to do absolutely nothing, to sharpen your axe, and then you need to take a day for personal things, you know, like cutting your grass and cleaning your house and things like that.

I mean, we, we really do need to shift our mentality in our thinking and take the Sabbath, a day of rest. It doesn't have to happen on Sunday. Proverbs 10, 27 says, reverence, uh, reverence for God adds hours to each day. It's actually adding hours to our day. So, honor the Sabbath.

Seems so simple, but it's a big deal. Take a day of rest. Relax. Sharpen. Sharpen.

Sharpen. And number three, and this is probably the most important thing, is stay close to Jesus. Stay close to Jesus. He's your shepherd. He's the shepherd.

I'm the pastor, shepherd of, of, of, of this, that, that's been commissioned by God to do this, but ultimately, our pastor is Jesus. He's the shepherd of this house. He's the shepherd. We're all under the shepherd. Psalm 23, 1 and 3, it says, and he's a good shepherd.

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want, right? He makes me lie down in green pasture. He leads me beside, I love this, quiet waters. He leads me beside quiet waters and restores my soul.

I love, he gives us peace. Quiet waters emphasizes peace, relaxation. Come with me. Let's lay down in the nice grass. Let's take a rest.

Your shepherd desires you to come and be with him. You need to get close to Jesus. You need to set Sabbaths to the side just so that you can grow closer to Jesus and walk closer to your shepherd who cares and loves you dearly. Matthew 11, 28 and 30, he says, come to me, all who are weary and burdened. I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you. When you think about a yoke, you know, we don't use yokes a lot today, but a yoke was something you put on an animal, on cows, on horses, you know, to kind of pull you along. And when the yoke is uneven, it's not a good situation. The cow just kind of plows in circles, right? Because it's like one's here, one's there, and they're kind of pulling each other different ways.

But a good quality yoke, which cost a lot of money then, because there were different levels of yoke. You know, you had your Walmart yoke, you had your Target yoke, and then you had, you know, your Nordstrom's yoke. And you tried to, you know, manage those things. And Jesus is saying, I have the really nice yoke here. I have the yoke that you can actually manage and will not kill you.

It will not offer death. It will offer life. So come, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. And I will, and I am gentle and humble in heart. And you will find rest for your souls.

You will find rest for my yoke is. It's easy. There it goes. My yoke is easy. It's not hard.

It's easy. And my burden is like, take my yoke. Find the right purpose in your life. Find the right activities in your life that actually gives you breath. Stop filling your life up with all the stuff, all the things that really don't matter.

Begin to fill your life with things that matter, with what God called you to do and made you to do. And that's why we even designed our growth track the way we did it. So that you, we can help you find purpose. When you come into our, one of the things we want to do as our church, as the vision for our church, is to help you find your purpose. Which ultimately gives you life.

Life. He's gentle in heart and humble in heart. And, and some of you here are very fatigued. You're tired mentally. You're tired spiritually.

You're tired emotionally. You're tired in your body. And God's just calling you. And Jesus is reaching his hand out. He says, come to me.

Come to me. Stop trying to do it yourself. You may, you may, you know, it's not about taking a vacation, guys. Because a vacation just makes you more tired because there's vacation stuff to do. It's about filling your life with things that give me energy.

That give me life. I'm actually doing what I was called to do. What God created me to do. And I'm a part of a team that's making a difference. Whether it's in a local church or in a ministry or, or, or whatever you're doing.

You're actually experiencing the breath of fresh air that God has for you. Because you're doing everything that God created you to do. So in conclusion, I want to give you fresh air principle number three. Isaiah 63, 14 says this. They were given rest by the Spirit of the Lord.

This is how you guided your people to make for yourself a glorious name. They were given rest by the Spirit of the Lord. That's why you need to come out next week because I want to talk a little bit about the Spirit of the Lord. The fourth principle, the Spirit of the Lord. But God wants you to rest in his, in his Spirit.

So what's the fresh air principle? Slow down. It's easy. People, slow down. Slow down.

Listen. Listen to God. Listen to him. Jesus, the shepherd, is, is calling out to you. Jesus, the shepherd, is, is, I'm here.

Come, lay with me. Come experience me. Slow down. Slow down. Just take a second.

Just, just, just, just moment. I want you just to, to be at peace. Just for a moment. Stop thinking about lunch. Stop thinking about all the things.

I'm going to let you out here in a second. It's okay. You're going to have plenty of time. The world is still going to work. Right?

If you're not there. I just want you to just, just meditate on God for a second. And with all heads bowed and all eyes closed, let's just pray. Let's just pray together. Let's pray.

God, I pray that you would, your spirit would just breathe on us even at this moment, God. Just, just lift our hearts and lift our souls from the craziness and busyness of the world. Help us to see you more clearly. Help us to understand that this life is not about all the things, all the stuff we've, we've put in place to be content, to, to, to, to help us strive for whatever that thing is that we think is going to satisfy us, Lord. But help us to see that the only, only, only rest we find is actually in you, in you, God, in you, God.

That's where we find our rest. If there's anybody here today, I just want to pray for you right now. If you're having trouble managing your life, if you, if you would just raise your hand and say, Lord, Pastor, I need a prayer. And we have a prayer team actually here that's going to come up here, and you, you can actually get prayed over. If I could ask our prayer team just to come up and, and, and I just want to pray for you.

If you feel led to come to stage, it's fine. If you just, if you just want to stay right there and you seat and pray with me, I say, Lord Jesus, I pray in the name of Jesus. Everybody just lifted their hands this morning about their, their crazy lives, Lord, that you would just fill them with your spirit in such a way that they would see that they can only find rest in you. And that, Lord, give them purpose and give them hope and give them everything that they need, Lord, to live a successful life in you, God, in you, God. Amen.

Hallelujah. We just ask right now that you would, your hand would come out and touch them, touch them right where they are, Lord. And in that same breath, Lord, in that same with all, there are some of you that have never given your lives to Jesus Christ. You have never even started with principle one. You don't even know what it's like to know Jesus.

If that's you today, I ask you to raise your hand and give your life over to Christ. Make, make that decision today. If that's you, just, just be bold and say, Lord, I give my life to you. I give my heart to you. I'm tired of living this life the way I've always lived it.

I find no contentment. I want a relationship with you. If that's you today, please boldly raise your hand. Amen. Come on.

Come on, people. Come on. Today is the day. Today is the day. If you'll pray this with me, Lord, I believe that you are the son of God, that you died on the cross for my sin.

Lord, come into my life. Come into my heart. I received the blood that was shed for me on the cross. Today I live with you from this day forward. I surrender it all to you.

In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.